A Tale of Eight
by Write4thehelluvit
Summary: Jsyk i suck at summaries. This is the tale of eight. eight brilliant heroes who's,til now,story you have never heard.We begin with personal stories from each of them. Then continue on to the tale of their quest for freedom, love, acceptance and power.
1. The Pirate:Gaara Odin Lupus

**Ga'ara Odin ****Lupus**

I was born in late April in a place called Sunken Isle. Sunken Isle was a penal island used to hold the world most ferocious criminals. I don't know what has become of it now.

I was a rape baby; what more could be expected from a child made on that wretched Isle. Nothing good was expected to come of me; the same was expected of every other child born on that island. I grew up just as the other children did; as a scavenger. We kids had to form packs to protect ourselves from the adults; in order to survive.

I had a brother…two years older than me who was killed by our father while trying to keep him from raping me. He was the leader of the pack of kids we ran with, and a year after he died I took his place.

And his name.

I went from Odin to Ga'ara. But I didn't quite take to the name until I was well into my pirating days. I had always prefered masculine names.

Our pack was called the Lupus pack; we were called that because all the children in our pack were wolves. And so, we all made our last names what our pack name was.

The only child in our group who was not a wolf was Chrono. But he was under my protection.

We didn't actually know what Chrono was; we assumed that because he had black hair and pointed ears that he was a demon. But he didn't have powers like the demons did; he could barely defend himself. He was five years older than me, and yet I was the one who had to protect him.

When I was five, pirates and marines came to our town, looking to recruit the children. Many of the children went with the marines; Chrono and I, along with six other children, chose the pirates.

The captain of the ship was named Calaeus. He had a sickly son about two years older than I was at the time. Everybody but the captain had accepted that his death was inevitable. The children were told that because of this, we would have to work hard to catch the attention of the captain, and become next in line as captain, just as his son would have.

After six months on the ship, the other shipmates were talking about making me the next captain. And I knew it as well; I was more like a pirate than some of the crew. That and I was a natural born leader.

But when the time came to choose the child who would be trained to be captain, everybody was surprised.

The captain chose Chrono over me. He made me co-captain.

The captain said he had chosen Chrono because Chrono had "the makings of a good captain", and the talents I possessed could be taught to me over time. He said that I was more like a pirate than some of his own crew; I was vulgar, sarcastic, manipulative, a quick thinker, and for that reason he made me next in command. But the one thing that no pirate captain should be, he said, was sociopathic. And I was indeed a sociopath. Whereas Chrono was compassionate towards all the crew; he was a good listener and always took other people's feelings to heart.

I blamed Chrono for my not being picked(though it was kinda his fault), and our friendship was demolished from there.

He tried to console me many times a day with gifts and letters, but they only made me feel worse. I did nothing to conceal my hatred for him, and even tried for his life once by stabbing him in the stomach while we were practicing sword-fighting. Lucky for him I only pierced his side.

The crew knew well that I understood the terms of being co-captain: Should the captain be injured, mortally wounded or killed, I would take over in his stead. And yet on several occasions they left me alone with him.

I guess they just wanted to see what I could do.

There was a harsh storm one night; Chrono and I were foolishly out on the deck fighting over the same things as usual, when a wave knocked us both nearly off the boat. I was hanging onto one of the rails on the side of the boat; Chrono was hanging off the side. If the boat turned even a foot more we would both fall to our death. I managed to grab his wrist before he lost his grip. And I'll never forget what happened next.

Chrono's eyes locked with mine. He surveyed our predicament; if I didn't pull him up soon we would both drown. But imagine a six-year-old trying to lift a ten-year-old; like a mouse trying to lift an elephant. My body was hanging over the edge; holding onto the rail with only my legs. Chrono was holding just above my elbows, dangling over the water.

Chrono smiled at me. "I'm sorry, Odin." He lifted himself just enough to brush my lips with his own for a brief second, and then he let go. I grasped wildly for his hand, which he pulled back almost instantly. I called his name only twice before his body hit the water and sank beneath the waves.

The next morning all was sunny and well.

Nobody questioned where Chrono had gone; most of them thought I had thrown him overboard during the storm.

And in order to run what was to be my ship successfully, I had to let them believe I was capable of such things.

Now I am.


	2. The Gypsy:Vixana Kitan

Vixana Kitan

Stop! Thief!"

Oh, how many times I have heard those words uttered from the mouths of shop-keepers and fruit sellers.

Why am I always a "thief"?

Why can't they say "Stop! Poor hungry young woman who is probably only stealing my fruit because it's too high priced and her family cannot afford it on their small wages!"

It's a mouthful, and by the time people understand it….I'm halfway across the wasteland. That's why.

I was born while my family was being forced to migrate west, due to the rapid killing of our people. Once admired for out beauty and grace, now we are called witches and demons for those same things.

I grew up with my mother, grandmother, father and three elder sisters. I was the baby of the family and beloved for it. When I turned six my father died of disease. He had no money to his name, and for a long time we went without food.

My Family joined with another family of red foxes such as us. I learned all my best tricks from them. Their youngest boy, Hanné, became my best friend and eventually my fiancée when I turned twelve.

Because we traveled in such a large group, we drew far more attention to ourselves than was necessary. And only shortly after Hanné and I were wed, the authorities ambushed and killed half of our traveling pack. Now all that was left was my mother, grandmother, sisters, Hanné's mother and sisters, his baby brother, and two others I didn't know all that well. We had once been a troupe of 23, brought down to eleven. And after my grandmother died of pneumonia, we became ten.

When I turned thirteen I became pregnant with Hanné's child, and nine months later I had a baby girl I named Kaaza. Hanné and his family were separated from us while running from bandits, and sent to a concentration camp. Not a working camp like most of us who went there willingly thought it was. No. it was a death camp disguised as a working camp. We were killed by the hundreds there. And nobody was the wiser.

When my family and I settled again, we began forming alliances with other troupes. Our troupe became what we call the "main wagon". Or if you prefer the "royal troupe". Many other troupes knew of my father and who he was; even my mother hadn't known that he had been given the title "King of the scavengers" back when he was younger for saving three-thousand of our people from a death camp in a single knight.

That is how I gained my title of "princess". Sadly, I did not have to fight for it.

By now you probably have a good idea of who we are;

We are Gypsies. We are the ones who are born to suffer for other people's sins. And only in death can we truly reach our redemption.

I travel away from my family to seek a better future for us and our kind.

I travel to reach our redemption.


	3. The Magician:Tahlora Slash

Tahlora Slash

I've never really trusted people. I guess it's mostly because of the way I was raised.

My mother and father are highly-respected magicians who work for his royal majesty, King Laaluce the third. My brothers were taught from the age of two how to use magic. I was taught how to cook and clean.

From the day I was born, my father hated me. Maybe it was because I was a girl, or maybe my mother had conceived me outside of their marriage (not that I could blame her). But for whatever reason he had, he hated me.

My brothers were never very close to me either; my father always kept them a good distance away from me. None of them ever spoke to me if they could afford not to. And in truth, this caused me to hate them.

The only one who understood me was my mother; who had been forced at a young age to marry my father. She was my best friend. She was always there for me when I needed her. She told me herself that she wished she had killed herself on their wedding night as she had planned. "But then," she would always add, "I wouldn't have had you."

I spent many of my birthdays alone because I shared it with my oldest brother, Hiaté. Who demanded that my mother attend his "parties". My mother never bought him a single gift. Hiaté was the only son my mother truly hated; he was cruel to her in every form of the word. He was just like his father.

My mother taught me to never depend on anybody but myself. But us cheetah's are natural loners. So this wasn't an issue for me. I guess you could say that's where my being untrusting came from. On my birthdays my brothers would bring some of their younger female friends over to play pranks on me. These girls were the same ones I considered my friends; they hung out with me in school and after school. But they all had crushes on my brothers. So in exchange for something from my brothers, these girls would pretend they were taking me out somewhere for my birthday, and then lure me into an embarrassing trap, which my brothers wouldn't let me live down until my next birthday.

They started doing this when I was ten, and it took me three years to finally catch on. And I probably never would have caught on if not for the royal weapon crafter's eldest daughter, DemiSiad. Who was truly my only friend.

When I was thirteen my mother died while giving birth to what would have been my little sister…had she not been born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.

I became much more independent after that, all the girls I had once hung out with were almost instantly replaced by DemiSiad. And I do believe she influenced the events that happened after my fourteenth birthday; for my father had a distinct fear of DemiSiad and her kind.

Tigers, that is.

When I was fourteen my father began to teach me magic; not knowing, of course, that my mother had begun teaching it to me from infantry. I was far better at it than my brothers were, and in seeing this, my father named me his successor, instead of Hiaté. Of course, he never believed I would be better than him.

Once I challenged him to a duel. Once I lost badly. My father believes I will never prevail over him.

So no matter what I have to do, I will become better than him.

That is my purpose.


	4. The Prostitute:Lucian Alphonse

**Lucian Alphonse**

I don't actually know where I come from. All my memories of my first ten years of life are absent; as if they never happened. I was raised in an upper-class orphanage. The kind most children pray to be put into. My childhood was happy, I had no siblings, but I always had other children to play with. I was the only child in the orphanage who did not know what they were. Most of the children were bears, mice, lions, harpies, demons and humans. I didn't fit in with any of them. I wasn't any kind of animal, and I wasn't human. I wasn't a demon because I didn't have red eyes, and I wasn't a drow because I had black hair. I had no wings so I wasn't a harpy, and every other species was simply out of the question.

I stayed at the orphanage until I was sixteen, after that I went out on my own to make a living.

I had six months of hardships before I realized just where I could make my money; women often approached me looking to spend the night. That was when I realized that I was like a magnet to women. And I could use it to get money.

I started my profession after a married woman in her mid-forties paid me two platinum for one night alone with her (two platinum is equal to 2,000 gold. Which in converting to USD, is equal to 4,000 dollars). She told other women who came to seek me out, and within months I had a house, courtesy of one millionaires wife, expensive clothing( courtesy of another), and more money to waste than I could have ever imagined.

On the rare occasion that I should run out of money, or lose some of my clients, I would walk the upper-class streets, past the most expensive homes to catch the eye of a wife or daughter within the home. And when I couldn't attract them with my body, I used my charm, wit and knowledge to win their hearts. That way I never went hungry.

I had girlfriends and mistresses; though I did nothing for free. I never had time for any male friends; though on very rare occasions I was called to the house of a man to spend the night. Only the richest women could afford me; these women were almost always married.

I fought with a husband or two here and there over how neglectful they were to their wives. Most men don't realize how good they have it until their wife cheats or leaves them.

Of course, I would never have to worry about that; I have no intentions of settling down and starting a family any time soon. Nor do I have any intentions of discontinuing my current way of life; not until I am good and old.

But, one can only immerse oneself in these guilty pleasures for so long.

And I was probably the only man in the world who did not know it.


	5. The Merchant:Diablo Dixarik

**Diablo ****Dixarik**

I was born the son of a millionaire. Thus my fixation with all things gold. Seeing as I could easily afford them.

I have one other sibling named Jogyo whom I love dearly.

My childhood (as per expectance) was filled with my own joy and love from others; even an affair with a woman here and there.

There is nothing in my childhood worth remembering.

Not even my adolescencc...just...

The Gypsy girl.

I often stay out in my garden far past the daytime hours; there is nothing else to do during the fall…besides picturing her face…

It was the summer of my fifteenth birthday; I was spending it alone, as was my wish. I hate celebrating my birthdays with my family. They always have to throw a formal ball and invite every woman in the royal court with the hopes that I might fall in love with one of them.

Never.

I was out in the garden, just as I am now. Watching the flames on the candles of my birthday cake flicker like lights. It's the middle of the afternoon; everybody is out preparing for what they think will be a surprise party for me. I'm all alone.

I was out in the yard for a good half hour before she catapulted over the fence and into my cake.

Once she fell I had a good moment to stare directly into her eyes. She sat there for longer than was necessary. Staring into my eyes with such intensity. I could only name surprise and confusion for sure…and perhaps what I thought was lust.

Our gaze was broken by the sound of a police whistle. And she started off again. I managed to grab her wrist and pull her inside my garden shed, where I pressed her against the wall in an effort to conceal the both of us. The Police passed on, thinking she had moved to the next garden.

She said nothing as I moved back and away from her; she looked frightened beyond her wit. I smiled casually at her as I usually do with strangers, ignoring the blue and white icing on my expensive demonworm silk. She past me long enough for me to take in her features: cherubic face, long rust colored hair, large dark orange eyes with slit pupils. She was a red fox. And a beauty at that.

I was in love…..in a matter of speaking; I knew that if we were out in the wild she would be my last choice for a mate; she would be my prey. That's just how we coyote's are.

I couldn't bring myself to look away from her. She didn't seem interested in me in even the slightest way.

She stepped out of the shed cautiously and looked back. She smiled and my heart lit up.

"Thank you." Those words were like angels singing.

She dug in one of the pockets of her dirty torn grey jacket and handed me my money purse.

"Sorry."

I stared at my purse wondering how she managed to grab it without my noticing. When I looked up again she was gone.

I hoped I would see her again.

But I never really thought I would.


	6. The Worrior:DemiSiad Tahlon

**DemiSiad ****Tahlon**

From the day I was born, my father always used to tell me, I had had a strange fascination with weaponry.

He thought that perhaps, it had begun in the womb; my mother had a fixation for knives and would stare at and play with them all throughout her pregnancy with me and my twin brother.

Actually, my siblings and I are fraternal quadruplets, there is a two hour gap between my brother and I, and my two younger sisters

But that is beside the point.

When I was very young, perhaps two or three, my mother gave both my brother and I a choice of two things; for me, a baby doll and a butter knife, for my brother, a book and a butter knife.

I chose the knife, my brother chose the book. My two younger sisters (of course) chose the baby dolls.

From then on I was my father's favorite. And my brother was mama's favorite. She always did prefer brains over brawn (makes me wonder why she chose my papa).

My father began training me in weaponry the moment I turned five, by the time I was ten I had mastered every weapon within my reach, and even created a few of my own design. By the time I turned fourteen I had become fighting champion of my land. And once I turned sixteen I was granted my wish to leave home to pursue this dream…

I have no real tale of disaster or mayhem, as my counterparts do. My life was peaceful and enjoyable. There has yet to be tragedy in my life. I have but one good friend, one _true_friend. The royal magician's only daughter, and will leave with me to pursue her dream of becoming the greatest female magician to ever live. And of course, there is that Jahagudar boy. He is indeed my friend, but we are not as close as Tahlora and I; though I have known him since infantry.

And so you know my story. Or, my ambitions at least. I have only my wit as motivation, no tragedy or romance.

Just want.


End file.
